Plenty to ponder for Vaughan

Learning the job, becoming a skilled professional, a craftsman requires versatility. There are basic skills in bowling - length and direction for a start.

Presumably Darren Pattinson was playing cricket before being selected for Victoria (and, more recently, Nottinghamshire). In grade cricket he would have learned a lot. But could he have the resources to deal with the leap to Test cricket in so few first-class games? I could imagine a really fast bowler might. If you get the ball to the other end fast enough, subtlety does not much come into it. Rawness may be an asset. You don't think too much about it and, in that honeymoon period before doubts creep in, perhaps you are better off. A little thought is a dangerous thing. But for a bowler like Pattinson, however much he may be a horse for a course, and whatever the advantage to him in the opposition never having seen him, I find it hard to believe that he can have imbibed enough to cope with the range of batsmen and conditions that he may face, when the level is upped and the punishment of shortcomings that much more inevitable.

In fact, Pattinson showed nothing that encouraged Michael Vaughan, was taken off after three respectable overs, but not brought back until the 37th over of the innings. It's tight stuff, Test cricket, and you cannot risk losing control. Someone is let off the hook and the whole game can change. I wonder whether Vaughan was consulted. He would probably have preferred to have Steve Harmison or Simon Jones or Matthew Hoggard in his team than this worthy but untried apprentice. The selectors seem to have had a rush of blood; from rigid loyalty to flights of fancy.

The captain of course has other things on his mind, not least his own struggle for runs. He has always given the bowlers a chance, the way he looks to drive, plays slightly from leg to off. But he has been, at his best, so fluent and beautiful a stylist, so quick to pick up length and pull anything short, thus earning himself a fuller diet of balls to drive, that any slight lack of solidity has been more than compensated for by his ability to dominate. Since his return from injury, however, Vaughan has looked more and more vulnerable to the good ball early on. He gets bowled a lot for a number three, and looks late on the ball, despite finishing up perfectly poised. I am asked, as an expert on this point, how hard it is for a captain to drop people when he is scoring no runs himself.

We now have a system where the captain is not a selector, so the issue does not so directly arise. He must be consulted, though, and will have the same internal pulls - if there are any - as he would if he were a selector. The fundamental question is whether the captain can in his own mind justify his place in the team. Does he feel that he contributes enough?

If not, the whole job is hard to sustain, including feeling authorised to drop someone who is a better batsman, or a better bet as a batsman, than you are yourself. There were occasions when I needed others to help me feel, at a steady enough conscious level, that I was of value to the team. I suppose I was not alone in harbouring secret doubts at a more subliminal level. But if that more or less basic self-belief is there, then the question of dropping a player is just the same as it is if one is a star batsman oneself. Two factors enter in. One is the purely pragmatic: what most strengthens the team? Who would the opposition least like to see walking out to face them? And the second is more to do with how someone will take it, how to break it to them, what chances they have of coming back. Being dropped may sometimes be, frankly or secretly, a relief to a player who is out of form. The agony of being utterly out of form on a very public stage is exquisite. (It is one of the factors of success that a player has the grit to hang on when out of form, and survive - I think of very fine players such as Ken Barrington and Geoffrey Boycott as great exemplars of this.) But it is also wounding to be dropped and a person needs some help in coming to terms with it. It is also hard to evict from the team someone with whom you have gone through a lot together.

To come back to Vaughan, I don't imagine he lost much sleep over the business of leaving out Paul Collingwood. He would be sorry to lose him, for the time being at least. He would feel, I expect, a loyalty and friendliness to a great fighter and contributor. But it would be, basically, a judgment. It is harder if he strongly disagrees with what the selectors decide: a scenario more likely, I imagine, to have been the case with Pattinson than with Collingwood.

Vaughan also featured in the crucial moment in this Test, when Hashim Amla got a leading edge to a ball from Andrew Flintoff, the ball dropped just over the bowler, Vaughan from mid-off came in athletically, dived forward and scooped the ball up. It looked like a genuine catch, I am sure that is what Vaughan thought, too, and the batsman without hesitation walked off. By the time he approached the boundary, however, the South Africa coach and captain, having seen replays on TV that cast doubt on the catch, were suggesting that he return. The umpires signalled for a referral to the third umpire and Amla was reinstated.

This episode shows up the illogicality of our arrangements for use of replays. Why in the first place should there be a replay when a catch may or may not have been clean, but not to check whether the ball hit a glove or an edge?

Second, the Amla incident showed up the problem of when referrals can be made. Did the batsman in effect ask the umpire for a referral? Was it an (under-cover) example of a player challenge? Were the umpires right to call for it?

My personal preference is for umpire referrals whenever they feel them necessary, rather than player challenges. But on this occasion I think the umpires were right. I don't think it's their business to interfere in a batsman walking out believing he has been dismissed. Even if the umpire thinks the ball has bounced, he is not in such circumstances called upon to act. The players have taken the decision into their own hands and usually the game goes happily on. However, now TV shows a doubt. The batsman - and I'm not in the slightest criticising what Amla did - has by pausing before he reaches the boundary changed his mind about walking off. There is now a decision for the umpires to make and they were quite within their rights to ask for the third umpire to look. (And then I think he had no choice but to say there was doubt, so the batsman should be given not out). But up to what point can such a change of mind be permitted? What if the next batsman has got to the crease? The umpire can change his mind at any time before the next ball is bowled.

Perhaps the solution is for the umpires to be more proactive and to say, if they have doubts, that they would like to see a replay, even if the batsman is about to walk off. And as I say, let's get all the help we can from the technology.

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